What does a take to really get a truck and self haul??

I believe with starting a trucking company, there is absolutely no way to avoid risk unless you have bottomless pockets within reach. And I mean bottomless. There's a lot to consider but I feel like at the end of the day it just takes balls to commit to that leap of faith

 

I wouldn't call it easy, but it's not hard. Everybody's situation is different. I had no experience with freight brokers, driving a truck, or finding freight.

Had a company file all my paperwork. I bought the truck and trailer, and went to work.

 

Money

 

Hustle, it takes alot of hustle.

 

Always keep in mind: this is a business and don't let your personal feelings of anything get in the way. Once you sign up to haul for someone, you're committed to that load and it becomes your responsibility to deliver the freight damage free in a reasonable timeframe. I make business decisions based on several decades experience. There have been failures and successes, but overall I love what I do and make a comfortable living. You'll make $$ and lose it, sometimes in the same day! Always keep learning. No one knows it all. I've been in trucking all my life, over 42 years, and I constantly learn new things. Keep your personality friendly and professional and the business will come.

Best of luck.
Sophia

 

Well first of all you can't listen to anybody that tells you it's easy or jump in now and you'll get rich or that type of thing.

I don't know the staistic exactly but it's probably somewhere around 90% of owner-operators fail within the first two years. If you want to go down that path you really have to do your research and have plenty of money and experience definitely will save you money. Because you either have someone else pay for your mistakes while you work for them or you pay for your own mistakes and that cost you money with your own truck.

It is not a given that having your own truck you make more money than being a company driver. It is not a given that if you have your Authority you make more money than someone that is leased on somewhere. This is a very individualized business with a bunch of different segments in all different parts of the country and the decisions that you make and what you do and how you do it are really what determine the outcome.

Being undercapitalized is the biggest problem. If you have a truck that breaks down with expensive repairs and you have high payments and high insurance and a house to pay for and kids to pay for their college and a wife that likes diamonds and Furs and new cars and credit cards you're screwed unless you have an incredible amount of money.

Whatever you do whatever you do whatever you do, do not listen to the idiots that will tell you to do anything that you can to get yourself into a truck can get started because you're going to get rich. There are idiots out there that are putting down like $5,000 or $10,000 on a $300,000 truck and trailer and they're having insane payments and insane insurance payments because they think they're going to get rich.

What is going to happen is the market is going to turn down they're not going to be able to make any money that $300,000 setup is only going to be worth $150,000 or less because it's depreciating every day they use it, and when the market turns the price of equipment will go down, and they will go bankrupt and become a statistic.

Be intelligent don't be like those idiots. If you seriously want to do this go to work somewhere learn the business and read all you can in the the Forum use the search button and you can learn a tremendous amount about how everything works.